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Union Calendar No. 193. 

61st Congress, ) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. J Report 

2d Session. \ \ No. 1000. 



COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 



April IS, 1910. — Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
the Union and ordered to be printed. 



U-S- 
Mr. McCall, from the Committee on the Library, submitted the 

following 

REPORT. 

[To accompany H. R. 15428.] 

The Committee on the Librar}-, to whom was referred the bill i\l. R. 
15428) to establish a commission on national historical publications, 
submit the following- report: 

Amend the bill by striking out all after the enacting clause and sub- 
.stituting therefor the following: 

That a permanent commission on national historical publications is hereby created, 
to be composed of nine per.-i(ms of the liighest standing for scholarship and judgment 
in the field of United States history, who shall be appointed by the President and 
shall serve for a period of four years each, and until their successors are appointed 
and qnaliiied. The President shall have power to fill all vacancies. 

That before the preparation of any historical publication shall be begun by any 
department, or by any bureau in any department, or by any committee of the Senate 
or House of Representatives, the head of such department shall, and the chairman 
of such committee of the Senate or House of Representatives may, require the opin- 
ion in writing of the said commission on national historical publications as to the 
advisability, scope, plan, and method of preparation of such publication. 

That the said commission shall annually in the month of November report to the 
President, for transmission to Congress, its proceedings during the 'year preceding, 
ami such recommendations as it may deem advisable concerning national historical 
publications. 

That when the recommendation of the said commission, advising the preparation, 
or publication, of any volume, or series of volumes of historical material, shall have 
been followed by an appropriation to pay the expenses thereof, the v^'ork shall be 
done under the direction and control of the said commission. 

That said commission shall have a secretary, who shall be appointed by the com- 
mission, and who shall be paid at the rate of $2,000 a year, and such other assistance 
as the President may authorize, au<l the members of the commission shall each be 
paid actual expenses in going to and returning from Washington to attend the meet- 
mgs of said commission and while attending the same. 

That to meet the ex{)en8es made necessary by this act the expenditure of not 
exceeding $10,000 a year is hereby authorized. 

Amend the title to read: "A bill establishing a commission on 
national historical publications."' 



2 COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 

As above amended, the committee recommend that the bill do pass. 

The purposes of the bill are so well and so correctl^y stated by one 
of its supporters who appeared before the committee that the com- 
mittee substantially adopts his statement. 

The bill is designed to introduce a greater measure of economy and 
efficiency in an important branch of the Government's publications. 
It is assumed that we shall publish in the future, as we have published 
in the past, in each decade a considerable number of volumes of docu- 
mentary historical materials. All governments that care for public 
enlightenment and seek to promote intelligent patriotism do this. The 
Government of the United States has, first and last, published manj^ 
such volumes. But it has never had a general, broadly conceived, 
systematic plan, and it has never had any regular, organized means of 
bringing expert historical opinion to bear on the question what enter- 
prises ought to be undertaken and how each should be accomplished. 
The result is that the whole mass has been miscellaneous and casual. 
The Goverment has issued many valuable and well-executed historical 
publications, but be( ause of the casual and haphazard process through 
which publications have bepn resolved upon and the want of close con- 
trol over their execution, it has issued some that had no substantial 
historical importance and some that were quite badly done. 

This unsystematic and unscientific procedure has caused great waste 
of money, most of which could well be prevented. In the last twenty 
years the Government has expended nearly $3,000,000 in historical 
publications — two millions on the Ofiicial Records of the War, a mil- 
lion on other works — an average of $150,000 a year. With a good 
system and expert guidance, more good could have been obtained 
from half the money. The Government of Belgium, a country having 
not one-tenth the population and resources of the United States, has 
in the eighty years of its existence published almost exactly the same 
number of historical volumes as the United States Government has 
issued in the same period, and has probably never in any one year 
appropriated $10,000 to the purpose. 

Nearly all of our Government's great historical enterprises have 
now been brought to a close. At least there is no great work now 
pending, and we have a free hand for the introduction of a better sys- 
tem. The main evils — of doing the wrong things, of doing things by 
means of persons not properly qualified, of doing them wastefully and 
extravagantly — are to be guarded against, first, by insuring that exec- 
utive departments and committees of Congress shall not be at the 
mercy of interested persons, half-instructed persons, who push a par- 
ticular project till it is resolved upon, though it has little or no rela- 
tion to the needs of historical students or the education of the public. 
Secondly, they are to be guarded against by insuring that the tasks 
which wise policy dictates as part of a well considered, rational, and 
comprehensive plan shall be intrusted to persons of approved scholar- 
ship in order that the workmanship may be a credit to the country, 
and the results such that the statesman, the student, and the citizen can 
rely upon them. Thirdly, they are to be guarded against by insuring 
that persons permanently interested in having these things rightly 
done, and having no other interest in the matter, shall keep a steady 
hand on the execution and see that all possible means are taken to 
secure to the Government and the people their full money's worth for 
whatever sums the Congress appropriates to this important branch of 
public education. 

APn . , 1910 



COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 3 

The common experience of civilized governments has perfectly well 
proved that all this is best done by intrusting the general supervision 
of a government's historical publications to a small and relatively per- 
manent commission of experts, men whose lives are occupied, in 
universities or elsewhere, with historical pursuits, and to whom it is 
a vital matter that these tasks should be wisely chosen and rightly 
performed. Such persons will always feel a strong professional 
interest in such supervision. If their number is large enough to 
make them representative of the various sections and historical inter- 
ests of the country (nine seems wise in the case of the United States) 
(hey will act in a broad and comprehensive spirit, with an eye to the 
needs of the whole land and to the entire future. 

Great Britain began with such a commission in 1800; France, at the 
instance of Guizot, in ISSi; Belgium in the same year. Commissions 
of precisely this form exist to-da}' in Austria, in Hungary, in Italy, in 
Russia, in the Netherlands, in nearly all the German States, in Canada, 
and in Japan. The French and the Dutch furnish espe<aally good 
models to follow. Tliese commissions survey the different periods 
and aspects of the national history, study the gaps in the record and 
the best means of tilling them by documentary historical publications, 
plan these publications, select the most qualified scholars to edit each 
and supervise their execution. The result has been, in each country, 
the production at low cost of admirable series of volumes which meet 
real needs and maintain a level of qualit}' much above that which char- 
acterizes the average historical publication of the American Govern- 
ment. 

It is also worthy of remark that among our state governments 
those (about ten in number) which have for some years had similar 
permanent advisory or supervisory bodies in charge of their histori- 
cal interests, have on the whole been distinguished above all the rest 
for the excellence of theii" historical volumes. The last thirty yeais 
have witnessed the development in the United States of a remarkable 
body of historical scholars. Your committee deem it no more than 
sound policy and wise economy to establish some regular means by 
which the National Government, too, may avail itself of their knowl- 
edge and experience in matters in which their advice would be of 
value. 

An instance of the value which may attach to the work of such a 
commission may be seen in the work of a temporary committee on the 
documentary historical publications of the United States Government 
which, at the instance of President Roosevelt, the Committee on 
Department Methods summoned to advise it as an assistant committee. 
The report of that assistant committee, presented in November, 1908, 
was printed b}^ the Committee on Department Methods, and was also 
transmitted to the Congress by the President on February 11, 1909 
(60th Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. No. 714). Prepared by a committee of 
the best historical scholars in America, it presents an invaluable survey 
of our historv with respect to its documentation, discussing most 
instructively what has been done, what still remains to be accomplished, 
what methods have been followed in the historical work of other 
countries, and what methods should be followed by our Government 
in order to obtain the best results. The present bill is in general line 
with the recommendations of that committee. 



4 COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 

It will be seen that the bill in the form in which it is repoited b}' 
your committee provides for an advisory commission of experts, and 
for the taking- of their advice by such governmental authorities as 
have ordinarily hitherto had charge of the inception and preparation 
of historical publications. It imposes no restrictions on the subsequent 
action of departments, bureaus, or committees of the Houses of Con- 
gress. But it is believed that all such autliorities will value the advice 
of such a commission, properly constituted, and will be disposed to 
give that advice its due weight in conjunction with departmental or 
legislative considerations. Recognizing, however, that the best result, 
the gradual creation of a body of historical materials of which such a 
countr}' can be proud, can never be achieved unless the commission 
has the power to plan as well as to advise, the bill invests the commis- 
sion with authority to initiate recommendations, and provides a means 
whereby those recommendations may annually be laid before Congress 
for such action as it may see tit to take. 

It is to be hoped that, if the proposals of the commission are as wise 
as should be expected from a body so constituted, the gradual execu- 
tion of what it recommends may from time to time be authorized by 
Congress; but the bill makes no provision for any expenditures 
beyond those for the salary of a secretary ($2,000), for other assist- 
ance authorized by the President, and for the traveling expenses of 
the members of the commission attending its meetings. These three 
classes of expenditure the bill limits to a total sum not exceeding 
$10,000 a year. In other words, the bill simply provides for the 
mechanism of an expert commission and leaves to Congress the duty 
of passing upon the publication of any given work which may be 
recommended in the future. 

o 



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